Category: Corona Virus Vaccine

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Vaccine Finder | Marin County Coronavirus Information

For Immediate Release: March 29, 2022

Espaol

Today, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration authorized a second booster dose of either the Pfizer-BioNTech or the Moderna COVID-19 vaccines for older people and certain immunocompromised individuals. The FDA previously authorized a single booster dose for certain immunocompromised individuals following completion of a three-dose primary vaccination series. This action will now make a second booster dose of these vaccines available to other populations at higher risk for severe disease, hospitalization and death. Emerging evidence suggests that a second booster dose of an mRNA COVID-19 vaccine improves protection against severe COVID-19 and is not associated with new safety concerns.

The agency amended the emergency use authorizations as follows:

Current evidence suggests some waning of protection over time against serious outcomes from COVID-19 in older and immunocompromised individuals. Based on an analysis of emerging data, a second booster dose of either the Pfizer-BioNTech or Moderna COVID-19 vaccine could help increase protection levels for these higher-risk individuals, said Peter Marks, M.D., Ph.D., director of the FDAs Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research. Additionally, the data show that an initial booster dose is critical in helping to protect all adults from the potentially severe outcomes of COVID-19. So, those who have not received their initial booster dose are strongly encouraged to do so.

Todays action applies only to the Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna COVID-19 vaccines and the authorization of a single booster dose for other age groups with these vaccines remains unchanged. The agency will continue to evaluate data and information as it becomes available when considering the potential use of a second booster dose in other age groups.

The FDA-authorized Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 Vaccine and the FDA-approved Comirnaty can be used to provide the authorized booster dose(s). Similarly, the FDA-authorized Moderna COVID-19 Vaccine and the FDA-approved Spikevax are authorized to provide the authorized booster dose(s).

Information to Support Authorization of a Second COVID-19 Booster Dose

The FDA has determined that the known and potential benefits of a second COVID-19 vaccine booster dose with either of these vaccines outweigh their known and potential risks in these populations. The evidence considered for authorization of a second booster dose following primary vaccination and first booster dose included safety and immune response information provided to the agency as well as additional information on effectiveness submitted by the companies.

A summary of safety surveillance data provided to the FDA by the Ministry of Health of Israel on the administration of approximately 700,000 fourth (second booster) doses of the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 Vaccine given at least 4 months after the third dose in adults 18 years of age and older (approximately 600,000 of whom were 60 years of age or older) revealed no new safety concerns.

The safety of Moderna COVID-19 Vaccine, when administered as a second booster dose, is informed by experience with the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 Vaccine and safety information reported from an independently conducted study in which the Moderna COVID-19 Vaccine was administered as a second booster dose to 120 participants 18 years of age and older who had received a two-dose primary series and a first booster dose of Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 Vaccine at least 4 months prior. No new safety concerns were reported during up to three weeks of follow up after the second booster dose.

Immunogenicity data from an ongoing, open-label, non-randomized clinical study in healthcare workers at a single center in Israel were reported in a publication provided to the FDA. In this study, individuals 18 years of age and older who had received primary vaccination and a first booster dose with Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 Vaccine were administered a second booster dose of Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 Vaccine (154 individuals) or Moderna COVID-19 Vaccine (120 individuals) at least four months after the first booster dose. Among these individuals, increases in neutralizing antibody levels against SARS-CoV-2 virus, including delta and omicron variants were reported two weeks after the second booster as compared to 5 months after the first booster dose.

The amendments to the EUAs to include a second booster dose for these populations were granted to Pfizer Inc. and ModernaTX Inc.

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The FDA, an agency within the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, protects the public health by assuring the safety, effectiveness, and security of human and veterinary drugs, vaccines and other biological products for human use, and medical devices. The agency also is responsible for the safety and security of our nations food supply, cosmetics, dietary supplements, products that give off electronic radiation, and for regulating tobacco products.

03/29/2022

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Coronavirus (COVID-19) Update: FDA Authorizes Second Booster Dose of Two COVID-19 Vaccines for Older and Immunocompromised Individuals | FDA - FDA.gov

Does the COVID vaccine contain the virus? No, and it won't make you "shed" spike proteins or transmit COVID-19 to others in any way, experts say, explaining how the vaccines work in an effort to swat down rumors and misinformation.

Misinformation about the coronavirus has been rampant on social media since the pandemic began, and vaccinations are no different. One rumor that's popped up is that unvaccinated people can get sick simply from contact with those who have gotten the COVID vaccine as they "shed" viral particles.

Public health experts and medical professionals across the board say that this type of "shedding" is absolutely not happening with the COVID vaccines - and that understanding how the vaccines work is key to knowing the truth.

There are currently three different COVID vaccines available in the U.S. The Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine and the Moderna vaccine are both two-dose mRNA vaccines, while the Johnson & Johnson vaccine is a single-shot that uses an adenovirus. Importantly, none contain the live coronavirus that causes COVID-19.

The Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna vaccines differ from traditional vaccines in their use of mRNA, a relatively new technology. Instead of introducing a weakened or an inactivated germ into your body, these vaccines inject mRNA, the genetic material that our cells read to make proteins, into your upper arm muscle.

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, "mRNA stands for messenger ribonucleic acid and can most easily be described as instructions for how to make a protein or even just a piece of a protein."

The mRNA vaccines contain those instructions for the distinctive spike protein found on the surface of the coronavirus and which attaches to a particular protein in our body. Once the mRNA is inside your muscle cells, the cells translate the information to make the protein or antigens anddisplay it on their surface, according to Pfizer. Your immune system spots the antigens, recognizes them as foreign and begins to make antibodies.

Essentially, the vaccine teaches your body how to make the protein that triggers antibody production so if the real virus later enters your body, your immune system will recognize and fight it, according to the CDC.

Unlike the Pfizer and Moderna shots, the J&J vaccine use a cold virus, called an adenovirus, to carry the spike gene into the body.

J&Js shot uses the cold virus like a Trojan horse to carry the spike gene into the body, where cells make harmless copies of the protein to prime the immune system in case the real virus comes along.

The CDC notes thatnone of the vaccinesuse the live virus that causes COVID-19. The Pfizer mRNA vaccine, for example, contains instructions for making a harmless piece of just one of the coronavirus' 29 proteins and your body breaks down those instructions and gets rid of them once it has made the spike protein.

"This vaccine is not a live vaccine," Dr. Sharon Welbel, the director of Hospital Epidemiology and Infection Control for Cook County Health said in December as vaccinations were just beginning.

"The vaccine is a little snippet of the genetic code of the virus that causes COVID-19. It instructs our bodies how to create a protein that's specific to the virus and then we develop our own antibodies," Welbel said.

The CDC also notes the vaccine won't make people test positive for coronavirus, though it could cause a positive antibody test.

Typically, a vaccine puts a weakened or inactivated virus into our bodies to trigger an immune response, which then produces antibodies. Those antibodies are what ultimately protect us from getting infected if we ever encounter the real thing.

According to the CDC, mRNA vaccines don't contain the virus in any form but instead contain the material to "teach our cells how to make a proteinor even just a piece of a proteinthat triggers an immune response inside our bodies."

In order to "shed" coronavirus particles, you would have to have the live coronavirus in your body, experts say - and none of the available vaccines contain the live virus in any amount.

"None of the COVID-19 vaccines can make you sick with COVID-19, nor do they contain the live virus in any amount," says Cook County Department of Public Health' Senior Medical Officer and Co-Lead Dr. Kiran Joshi."COVID-19 vaccines teach our immune systems how to recognize and fight the virus that causes COVID-19."

To this, Joshi also said no: "None of the authorized COVID-19 vaccines contain the live virus that causes COVID-19. This means that a COVID-19 vaccine cannot make you sick with COVID-19, and you cannot transmit the virus to others."

"No. Vaccines train our immune systems to create proteins that fight disease, known as antibodies, just as would happen when we are exposed to a disease but crucially vaccines work without making us sick," Joshi said.

"COVID-19 vaccines help our bodies develop immunity to the virus that causes COVID-19 without us having to get the illness."

"mRNA is not able to alter or modify a persons genetic makeup (DNA). The mRNA from a COVID-19 vaccine never enter the nucleus of the cell, which is where our DNA are kept," the CDC says. "This means the mRNA does not affect or interact with our DNA in any way. Instead, COVID-19 vaccines that use mRNA work with the bodys natural defenses to safely develop protection (immunity) to disease."

Mayo Clinic also said "injecting messenger RNA into your body will not interact or do anything to the DNA of your cells."

"Human cells break down and get rid of the messenger RNA soon after they have finished using the instructions," the clinic's website reads.

Read more:

Does the COVID Vaccine Contain the Virus? No ... - NBC Chicago

School mask mandates are expiring across the US.

The wait for parents anxious to vaccinate their young children against COVID-19 may have gotten shorter. Moderna is joining Pfizer and BioNTech in the submission process to the US Food and Drug Administration with its vaccine for children 6 months through 5 years. The company will submit its data for authorization in the coming weeks, it said.

The immune response generated in children under age 6 with Moderna's small-dose vaccine (one-fourth the size of the adult primary series) mimics the response seen in adults -- a benchmark vaccine researchers use when gauging potential effectiveness for younger age groups. It also has a favorable safety profile in children as young as 6 months, the company said.

The company also announced it's seeking authorization for its vaccine for kids 6 to 11 and wants to extend US authorization of the vaccine for kids and teens. If Moderna gets the green light, kids and their parents will have a second COVID-19 vaccine option.

Pfizer and BioNTech's vaccine is authorized for kids and teens age 5 and older. Children under 5 are the only age group who can't get vaccinated against COVID-19.

In February, Pfizer and BioNTech's COVID-19 vaccine for kids and babies was paused after the companies announced they were extending their "rolling submission" authorization process for the vaccine for kids 6 months up to 5 years in order to study a third dose of the vaccine. Though two doses of Pfizer's smallest-dose vaccine were effective in babies and toddlers up to 2 years, the vaccine wasn't effective in kids 2 through 4 years.

The smaller-dosed children's vaccines, and the circulation of the omicron variant, have riddled the authorization process for the youngest age group as researchers scramble to find a dosing that'll work. Moderna's positive announcement about its two-dose vaccine for kids is good news for parents, but it also reflects a caveat about the efficacy of primary vaccine series in the era of omicron, a variant that's diminished infection protection for adults and kids alike (and is part of the reason health officials have called for booster doses in those eligible).

Jeff Zients, the White House COVID-19 Response team coordinator, said Wednesday that the government has enough supplies to vaccinate children under age 5 if and when the COVID-19 vaccine is authorized and recommended for that age group. The White House has warned that without congressional approval for more COVID-19 funding, the government won't be able to cover, for one example, fourth shots if they're needed for all Americans. The Uninsured Program for COVID-19 testing and treatments for Americans without health insurance has already stopped accepting claims.

Though parents of kids under age 5 will need to wait for FDA authorization (and then the CDC's recommendation), children age 5 and older can get vaccinated now. Here's everything we know about COVID-19 vaccines for babies, kids and teens.

Read more: 4th COVID Vaccine: Does a Second Booster Work?

Moderna is submitting data on a vaccine for kids 6 months through 5 years (up to 6 years). It's two doses -- one-fourth the size (25 micrograms) of Moderna's vaccine for adults -- given 28 days apart.

The vaccine had a favorable safety profile in the study,Moderna said, and while the vaccine efficacy is relatively lower compared with the efficacy rates seen earlier in the pandemic (43.7% for kids 6 months to 2 years, and 37.5% for children 2 to 6 years), this is "consistent with adult observational data" during the omicron wave, the company said.

If the FDA also authorizes Moderna's COVID-19 vaccine for kids 6 to 12, it'll be the company's adult booster size -- 50 micrograms, or one half the size given to adults as their first two shots. Moderna's vaccine is regulated for kids as young as 6 in Canada, Australia and the European Union.

Moderna is asking the FDA to extend the use of its adult vaccine for kids age 12 to 17. But right now the only vaccine available for kids under 18 in the US is Pfizer's.

Read more:What to Know About BA.2, or COVID's 'Stealth Omicron' Variant

Pfizer and BioNTech's vaccine for children 6 months through 4 years (up to 5 years) comes in two doses that are one-tenth the volume of the vaccine for people age 12 and up, a slightly smaller dose than Moderna's prospective vaccine for the age group. A third 3-microgram dose is being researched right now and is expected to complete the series.

The currently authorized and available COVID-19 vaccine for kids 5 to 11 is one-third the dose given to everyone 12 and up, and it's delivered in two doses. Pfizer's vaccine for kids can also be stored forup to 10 weeksin a fridge, making it easier to administer, and the cap on the vial isorange instead of purple and grayto avoid mix-ups.

And if it helps put your kids at ease, you can let them know the needle used to administer the child's dose of vaccine is also smaller.

For more information about Pfizer's vaccine for children ages 5 to 11,check out this FDA fact sheet.

Children as young as 12 can now get a booster dose of Pfizer's COVID-19 vaccine, given at least five months after their primary vaccination series.

Most kids younger than 12 can't get a booster, although the CDC recommends a third dose of the Pfizer vaccine for children 5 and up who areimmunocompromised. They're eligible for a third shot 28 days after their second dose.

Since Pfizer's COVID-19 vaccine is the lone vaccine currently authorized for kids and teens, it'll generally be available in doctor's offices and public health clinics, not pharmacies and other mass vaccination sites.

Call your pediatrician or local health clinic for a recommendation on where to go. Parents may alsotext their ZIP code to 438829oruse this vaccine finder linkto find a clinic near them that has the child vaccine available.

Read more:School Mask Mandates -- Only One State Hasn't Announced End to Masks in the Classroom

Children are much less likely to get severely sick from the virus than adults, but some children have died or been hospitalized with COVID-19. The omicron wave was specifically impactful on children, leading to an increase in hospitalizations as the nation's case count skyrocketed. State reports show that about 12.8 million kids have tested positive for COVID-19 since the start of the pandemic, according to the American Academy of Pediatrics.

An infection, even a mild case, can disrupt a child's ability to attend school or socialize, and kids can pass the infection to more-vulnerable family or community members. Kids can also experience dangerouscomplications from COVID-19, includinglong COVIDandMIS-C.

"There is an urgent need to collect more age-specific data to assess the severity of illness related to new variants as well as potential longer-term effects," the AAP said in a March report.

There are also racial disparities when it comes to how sick children get from COVID-19. Kids ages 5 to 11 who are Black, Native American or Hispanic are three times more likely than white children to be hospitalized with COVID-19, according to an FDA advisory panel presentation given when the delta variant was circulating. Of that group, about 1 in 3 required admission to an intensive care unit.

Vaccine side effects in kids ages 5 to 11 are mostly mild and similar to those adults may experience,according to the CDC, including soreness at the injection site, fever, muscle soreness, nausea and fatigue. In a Dec. 13 report from the agency, the CDCreviewed reports from safety monitoring systems on more than 8 million doses of Pfizer's vaccine given to kids ages 5 to 11, confirming that children's immune systems respond well to the vaccine with common mild side effects, and that serious adverse events are rarely reported.

Inflammation of the heart muscle, known as myocarditis, and of the muscle's outer lining, called pericarditis, arerare and typically mild side effectslinked to the Moderna and Pfizer vaccines, mostly in adolescent males and young men ages 12 to 29. (Myocarditis can also occur after infection with COVID-19.)

In one study,the CDC saidthat 54 recipients out of a million males ages 12 to 17 experienced myocarditis following the second dose of Pfizer-BioNTech's Comirnaty vaccine. In contrast, kids ages 5 to 11 who catch COVID-19 have a higher risk of multisystem inflammatory syndrome, or MIS-C, a potentially serious complication involving inflammation of the heart, lungs, kidneys, brain, skin, eyes or other organs.

"The bottom line is that getting COVID is much riskier to the heart than anything in this vaccine, no matter what age or sex you are," Dr. Matthew Oster, a pediatric cardiologist at Children's Healthcare of Atlanta, told the CDC in November as reported byABC News.

Yes, parents generally need to consent to their children receiving medical care, including Pfizer's COVID-19 vaccine. This is especially true for younger children.

However,depending on which state you live in, there may be a legal precedent for teens and other kids to request the vaccine without parental permission: Tennessee's vaccine director, Michelle Fiscus, was firedin August allegedly in part for sending out a memo detailing Tennessee's "mature minor doctrine," which explains how minors may seek medical care without the consent of their parents.

The CDC recommended a third dose for children as young as 5 who are "moderately to severely" immunocompromised, 28 days after their second shot. This guidance for immunocompromised children (including kids who've had an organ transplant or are taking medications that suppress the immune system) is in line with guidance for adults whose bodies don't mount a good immune response to the COVID-19 vaccines.

Yes, though you might be asked to stick around the waiting room so health care providers can monitor them for (extremely rare) allergic reactions that can occur after any vaccination.

"If the child has a history of anaphylaxis or other severe allergies, then the observation time after the injection may be 30 minutes instead of 15," said Dr. Anne Liu, an infectious disease specialist with Stanford Hospital and Clinics and the Lucile Packard Children's Hospital. Children who have been prescribed an EpiPen for any reason should bring it to their vaccine appointment, Liu added.

As with adults, children with an allergy to an ingredient in Pfizer's COVID-19 shouldn't take it. You can find a list of ingredients in Pfizer's vaccine for kids ages 5 to 11 on the FDA's fact sheet.

According to the CDC, your child may get other vaccines when they go in for their COVID shot without waiting 14 days between appointments. Flu shots can be given to children ages 6 months and older.

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The information contained in this article is for educational and informational purposes only and is not intended as health or medical advice. Always consult a physician or other qualified health provider regarding any questions you may have about a medical condition or health objectives.

See the article here:

Kids and Vaccines: Moderna Makes Big Moves on COVID Vaccine for Kids and Babies - CNET

Vaccination near me

Each municipality is responsible for offering coronavirus vaccination to people who live there. Check the website of your municipality to see how vaccination is carried out locally and when you will be offered the vaccine.Find the link to your municipality here:

The offer is available to everyone in recommended groups living in Norway, including foreign citizens. It also applies if you began primary vaccination abroad, but need to take more doses while you are living in Norway. It is not available to Norwegians or others living abroad.

Coronavirus vaccination is free. All vaccination in Norway is voluntary.

The solutions used for appointments vary between municipalities. In some places, drop-in vaccination is available without the need for an appointment. Check your municipality's website for information about the local arrangements.

Do not turn up for vaccination if, on the day:

*See the recommendations that apply for how long you should stay home

Inform the vaccination centre as soon as possible. Your vaccination will be postponed.

Before vaccination you will be asked to answer some questions about your health:

The vaccine is given by an injection in the upper arm.

After you have had the vaccine, you will be asked to wait for 20 minutes in case you experience any reactions.Everyone who administers vaccines has had training and necessary medication will be available to treat possible allergic reactions.

It is not recommended to take another vaccine on the same day as the coronavirus vaccine. There should be at least 1 week between the coronavirus vaccine and other vaccines. If there is a strong need to take several vaccines at the same time, you should consult a doctor.

More information about the vaccines used in Norway, available in many languages:

We distinguish between the primary vaccination series and booster vaccination. For booster vaccines, see the separate section below.

For most groups who are offered the coronavirus vaccine, the primary vaccination series comprises of two doses. The second dose should be given after 3-12 weeks. It is important that you try to take the second dose at the scheduled time. If something unforeseen should arise, contact the vaccination site to arrange a new appointment. The interval between doses can be important both for the degree of protection and for the validity of the COVID-19 certificate.

Vaccine

Number of doses to complete primary vaccination*

Recommended minimum interval between dose 1 and 2

Comirnaty (BioNTech and Pfizer)

2

21 days

Spikevax (Moderna)

2

28 days

Nuvaxovid (Novavax)

2

21 dager

Combination of Comirnaty, Spikevax or Nuvaxovid

2

28 days

For all three vaccines offered in the coronavirus immunisation programme, two doses are required for the primary vaccination series. If it is difficult to give two doses with the same vaccine, or is requested for other reasons, the Norwegian Institute of Public Health recommends combining the vaccines. When combining two different coronavirus vaccines in the primary vaccination series (doses 1 and 2), a minimum interval of 4 weeks between doses is recommended. No upper limit has yet been established for the interval between coronavirus vaccines.

* People who have had COVID-19 only need one vaccine dose to complete their primary vaccination series.

People with severely weakened immune systems (immunosuppressed) often have a poorer effect of vaccines than others. This means that many of these do not get a good enough effect from the first two doses. This group is therefore offered dose 3 in order to complete primary vaccination. For these, an interval between the 2nd and 3rd dose is recommended to be a minimum of 4 weeks. More information about this group can be found here:

Protection after primary vaccination with a coronavirus vaccine may diminish over time. A booster dose gives longer-term protection as well as a broader protection that can make us better prepared against new virus variants. The interval between dose 2 and the booster dose must be at least 20 weeks.

The advice about booster doses applies regardless of whether you have been vaccinated with: (a) two vaccine doses or b) had COVID-19 and one vaccine dose. In Norway, we consider both COVID-19 disease and vaccination to be equivalent "immunological events", as long as at least 3 weeks have passed between each of them. This means that an infection is equivalent to one vaccine dose. The interval between dose 2 (or having COVID-19) and the booster dose must be at least 20 weeks.

The Norwegian Institute of Public Health considers that confirmed COVID-19 disease among people who have had their primary vaccination series (under 65 years) more than 3 weeks after dose 2, can replace the medical need for a booster dose. However, people who want a booster dose despite having had COVID-19 after dose 2 can take it. This may be due to entry requirements to some countries, or for other reasons. For the age group 65 years and older, a booster dose is recommended if COVID-19 is detected before 3 months have passed since dose 2. People with severely impaired immune systems (immunosuppressed) follow a separate vaccination course.

Read more:

Two of the three approved coronavirus vaccines used in the coronavirus immunisation programme are mRNA vaccines; Comirnaty (from BioNTech/Pfizer) and Spikevax (from Moderna).

The vaccines contains the recipe (messenger RNA, or mRNA) for the characteristic spikes on the coronavirus encased in small fat bubbles. The body uses this recipe to make harmless copies of these spikes for the immune system to practise on. In this way, the immune system learns to recognise the coronavirus spikes and can defend the body if it becomes infected with the virus.

The messenger RNA is rapidly broken down by the body and has no effect on genetic material.

In addition, the vaccines contain substances to keep them stable during production, storage and transport, as well as to provide the right pH, which is important for reducing pain during injection. These substances are water, salts and sugar.

The coronavirus vaccines act to prevent disease. They cannot cure an ongoing illness.

More information about mRNA vaccines:

The coronavirus vaccine Nuvaxovid (from Novavax) is a protein-based vaccine based on a traditional vaccine technology. Similar technology is used in vaccine against hepatitis B and whooping cough. It contains a variant of the characteristic spikes (spike protein) on the coronavirus that the immune system can practise on. This is how the body learns to recognise and defend itself against real coronavirus if you later become infected.

The vaccine also contains a new ingredient (adjuvant) containing saponins from soap bark and fats (cholesterol and phospholipids). This helps to enhance the body's own immune response to get the best possible effect from the vaccine. Nuvaxovid also contains an emulsifier (Polysorbate 80) which ensures that fats and water in the adjuvant remain evenly mixed.

In addition, the vaccine contains water, various salts and sugar compounds that will keep it stable during production, storage and transport, as well as provide the right pH that is important for reducing pain during injection.

The coronavirus vaccine has a preventive effect. It cannot cure an ongoing illness.

Vaccine against coronavirus - Nuvaxovid (Novavax) Coronavirus vaccine from Novavax will be available in week 10 (News, NIPH)

The coronavirus immunisation programme in Norway uses the two mRNA vaccines from BioNTech / Pfizer and Moderna (see above), and the protein-based vaccine Nuvaxovid from Novavax. For most people, two doses are needed to complete the primary vaccination series, and several groups are also recommended to have a booster dose to get the best possible protection. Some will be offered, or request, a different coronavirus vaccine as dose 2 or as a booster vaccine than the one they began with. In principle, you are recommended to accept the vaccine you are offered, but it is also possible to choose which type of vaccine you want to take.

The coronavirus vaccines can cause side effects in many of those vaccinated, but they are mostly mild / moderate and pass after a few days. For some, the symptoms may be more severe. The mRNA vaccines appear to cause more of the common side effects than other vaccines. Nuvaxovid generally has slightly milder side effects with a shorter duration than the mRNA vaccines.The side effects after all three coronavirus vaccines usually occur during the first 1-2 days after vaccination. Common side effects are pain and swelling at the injection site, fatigue, headache, muscle aches, chills, joint pain and fever. Allergic reactions occur in some people. There is good knowledge about common side effects after vaccination, but rare side effects cannot be ruled out.

Among the rarer side effects reported from mRNA vaccines are inflammation of the heart muscle (myocarditis) and inflammation of the pericardium (pericarditis). The condition most often occurs among adolescents and young adults. It also seems to occur more often with the use of Spikevax (Moderna) than with Comirnaty (BioNTech/Pfizer). When offering mRNA vaccines to people under 30 years, the NIPH recommends the use of Comirnaty for both men and women.

Among those who experience these rare symptoms, they usually appear within a week after the second dose, and are temporary so that most people recover within one month. The condition causes chest pain, wheezing, palpitations and fever. In case of such symptoms, consult a doctor for a medical examination. Norwegian cardiologists consider that COVID-19 disease can cause more serious heart effects in some people than after the vaccine, and that this rare side effect should not prevent adolescents from being offered the vaccine.

Cases of menstrual disorders have been reported as a possible side effect in young women following coronavirus vaccination. This is being closely monitored.

If you experience unexpected, severe or prolonged symptoms that you think are due to the vaccine, you should contact your doctor or other healthcare professional for assessment and advice. Healthcare professionals have a duty to report serious or unknown reactions that they suspect are due to a vaccine. You can also send a message via the form via helsenorge.no.

The vaccine can give side effects up to three days after vaccination, so how should you deal with potential symptoms after vaccination?

Symptom

Measure

Symptoms that are typical vaccination side effects:

Fever, headache, fatigue, muscle or joint pain

Stay at home until you are fever-free and have a better general condition

If symptoms persist for more than 48 hours, consider a coronavirus test

Symptoms that are not typical vaccination side effects:

Cough, sore throat, runny nose, wheezing, lost taste / smell

Stay home and arrange a coronavirus test

When vaccines are developed, the goal is always for vaccines to give the best possible effect with the fewest possible side effects. Even if the new vaccines are tested thoroughly, rare side effects cannot be ruled out. Some side effects are only discovered when vaccines are in wider use, and have been given to many more people and to more varied groups than in the studies.

After the vaccines are in use, the Norwegian Medicines Agency, together with the Norwegian Institute of Public Health, will monitor closely whether any unexpected side effects arise. There is also extensive international collaboration with the other countries that use the same vaccines. In addition, the vaccine manufacturers are required to conduct new systematic safety studies.

The Norwegian Institute of Public Health (NIPH) collaborates with the Regional Medicine Information and Pharmacovigilance Centres (RELIS) to process reports of suspected side effects from healthcare personnel. The notifications are entered in the ADR Registry at the Norwegian Medicines Agency.

The Norwegian Medicines Agency publishes regular reports with an overview of reports of suspected adverse reactions after vaccination in Norway.

Notifications from healthcare professionals are thoroughly assessed to find out if the incident may be due to the vaccine, or if it happened at the same time as vaccination. It is important to be aware that events that coincide in time are not necessarily due to vaccination. Therefore, a medical examination is recommended to check for other explanations for the events. In some cases, it can be difficult to conclude whether an event is due to a vaccine or coincidence based on one or a few single events.

All three vaccines used in the coronavirus immunisation programme protect against COVID-19 disease.

The vaccines have a very good effect against a COVID-19 disease course that is so serious that hospital treatment is needed. This means that in those cases where people have COVID-19 despite vaccination, the vaccine can contribute to a milder disease course. This also seems to apply to the omicron variant. However, vaccination does not provide as good protection against infection with the omicron variant. The protection is poorer and shorter in duration than against the delta variant.

We are closely monitoring the duration of protection in different groups. Adults over 45 years and those with underlying conditions are recommended to have a booster dose because protection diminishes over time, see above.

Although vaccinated people have a much lower risk than unvaccinated people of getting COVID-19, vaccinated people could also be infected and transmit infection further. Therefore, it is important that vaccinated people follow the current infection control advice, stay at home and test themselves if they develop symptoms that resemble COVID-19.

The risk that vaccinated people get COVID-19 diseases is small, but can happen. Therefore, it is important to continue to follow the current infection control advice and to be tested if symptoms arise, even if vaccinated.

Until now, the vaccines have had a good effect against the various mutated virus variants. It is currently uncertain how good the protection will be against the omicron variant.

Although recent data suggest a lower vaccine effect against mild disease for some of the virus variants, vaccination may still give good protection against a severe disease course.

If we get virus variants where the vaccines do not work, then the vaccines can be adapted to improve the degree of protection.

Children and adolescents rarely have a severe COVID-19 disease course, although some may be admitted to hospital. Vaccination can reduce this risk.

Of the mRNA vaccines, the vaccine from BioNTech / Pfizer (Comirnaty) is used for people under 30 years. Children 511 years will be offered child doses of the vaccine. Immunity following infection, with or without a single dose of vaccine, can also provide broad and lasting protection in children and adolescents.

The following recommendations (should) and offers (can) for coronavirus vaccination apply to children and adolescents:

How

Adolescents born 2003, 2004 and 2005

Children and adolescents 515 years with severe underlying disease

Children and adolescents born 2006-2009

Children born 2010-2016, and those born in 2017 who have reached 5 years.

Children under 5 years of age

Read more about the recommendation for 16-17-year-olds:

Read more about the recommendation for 5-15-year-olds:

Those who have reached the age of 16 are of legal age and can consent to vaccination themselves. For children who are offered the coronavirus vaccine, but have not yet reached 16 years of age), parents must consent to vaccination. In the case of joint parental responsibility, both must consent. Children and adolescents under 16 should be consulted, based on age and maturity and their opinion should be given weight. Vaccination is voluntary.

Children have the right to receive tailored information. Parents should talk to their children about the decision to vaccinate and help to convey important information about this. The texts below and the links to tailored information material are intended to assist in this.

The NIPH does not have a general recommendation for the coronavirus vaccine for children aged 5-15 years, but it is available. Those who want to take the vaccine can choose whether they want 1 or 2 doses. The NIPH considers that when children have COVID-19, it provides at least as good protection as vaccination. Children who have had an infection therefore do not need a vaccine to protect themselves against a new infection.

The NIPH's assessments for children aged 5-15 where they and their parents want a vaccine, but the child has had COVID-19:

Other countries may have stricter requirements in connection with entry restrictions. If you need a valid COVID-19 certificate for travel, you must check which requirements apply for children at your destination.

The Norwegian Institute of Public Health considers that the societal benefit of vaccinating children should not be given as much weight as the individual benefit. Vaccination of children 5-11 years, and a second dose to 12-15-year-olds may have some effect on transmission. However, the vaccine's effect against transmission of the omicron variant appears to be lower and has a shorter duration than against previous virus variants. Therefore, the effect on transmission by vaccinating the entire child population will be limited, when the infection will transmit regardless among the vaccinated.

The risk of a severe COVID-19 disease course among healthy children is very low. There is no evidence that the omicron variant causes more severe disease among children than previous variants. The immune systems of children in this age group work faster and more effectively than in adults. They therefore become less ill, and recover faster than adults.Severe COVID-19 disease in children is particularly associated with a rare inflammatory condition called MIS-C. It is estimated that the condition occurs in about 1 in 3,000 infected children, and is more common in children of primary school age than in adolescents. The hallmarks of MIS-C are persistent high fever and inflammatory reaction in several organs that occur 2-6 weeks after infection, and the children need hospital treatment. There is effective treatment for the condition, but the most serious cases still need intensive care. Hospital stays for these children last 5 days (median) in Norway. Follow-up 4-9 months after MIS-C internationally indicates a good prognosis, and this is also the experience in Norway.

People who have had COVID-19 disease may, in some cases, have persistent symptoms for a long time afterwards. In adults, a clear correlation has been seen between the severity of acute COVID-19 disease and the severity of long term problems. It may seem that such late effects are less common in children than in adults, but knowledge about this is limited. The most commonly reported symptoms are fatigue, tiredness, difficulty concentrating, stuffy nose, sleep problems and pain. The number of reported symptoms appears to decrease over time.

Immunity following infection, with or without a dose of vaccine, can provide broad and lasting protection in children and adolescents. It may be an advantage for protection against new virus variants in the future as the risk of a severe disease course in this age group is low.

In Norway, children and adolescents are only offered the Comirnaty vaccine from BioNTech and Pfizer, even though Spikevax from Moderna has been approved from the age of 12 and up. This is to minimize the risk of rare side effects in the form of heart inflammation. It is also one of the most widely used coronavirus vaccines in children. Comirnaty is approved from 5 years and upwards and the age group 5-11 years will receive an adapted child dosage.

Children receive very good protection from the coronavirus vaccine. The protection against a severe disease course is good already three weeks after vaccination with one dose. This age group generally has a very good effect of vaccines, and it will probably be better than for older age groups. This also applies to the omicron variant. The vaccine's protection against becoming infected and against mild illness is lower than against serious illness.

The vast majority of side effects occur 1-2 days after vaccination, are mild / moderate and disappear after a few days. For some, the symptoms may be more severe. The coronavirus vaccines cause more of the common side effects than other vaccines. Younger people often have slightly more severe side effects than older people.

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Coronavirus vaccine - NIPH

Delivery workers passed food over a barrier at the edge of a locked-down Shanghai neighborhood on Wednesday.Credit...Aly Song/Reuters

The surge of Covid cases across China, driven by the highly transmissible Omicron variant, is straining hospitals and prompting lockdowns of neighborhoods in Shanghai, which until recently had been held up as a crown jewel in the governments strategy for fighting the pandemic.

Shanghai, Chinas largest city, has seen few cases until recently. Now, it is reporting more than 1,500 a day, and many residents are expressing anguish and dismay over Chinas zero-tolerance approach to the virus.

On Friday, anger and grief welled up online after a Shanghai hospital confirmed reports that a nurse who worked there, Zhou Shengni, had died from an asthma attack after finding the doors of its emergency department shut because of Covid restrictions.

Due to pandemic prevention needs, the emergency department of our hospitals southern campus had been temporarily closed, Shanghai East Hospital said on its website. Ms. Zhous family rushed her to another hospital, but she died late Wednesday after attempts to save her failed, Shanghai East said.

Just think, this happened in Shanghai, and it was a medical worker treated like this, read one of many comments about Ms. Zhous death on Weibo, a popular Chinese social media platform. What about regular folks? Not just in Shanghai, but other parts too.

The outbreak has fanned a rising debate in China over whether the government should rethink its stringent zero Covid strategy of eliminating all infections with relentless force, rather than finding a way to cope with higher levels of infection, as most countries have.

But officials across China have given no indications that the government is reworking its strategy. Instead, they insist that any easing of restrictions could exacerbate the surge of infections and further strain the medical system.

We hope that everyone slows down their life at this time, cutting down on outings and moving around, Wu Jinglei, the director of the Shanghai Municipal Health Commission, said at a news conference on Thursday. Pandemic prevention in our city has entered the most critical stage.

On Friday, Shanghais health commission reported that it had identified 1,609 Covid cases the previous day, 1,580 of which were asymptomatic. China has recorded over 29,000 cases so far in March. That represents a significant spike for the country, which has kept cases low since quashing the worlds first outbreak, which began in the city of Wuhan, in 2020.

The current outbreak has strained Shanghais medical system as hospitals and isolation hotels are crowded with patients, residents have said on social media. The city government has started issuing a daily list of hospital clinics that have suspended outpatient and elective treatments and surgeries in order to cope with the Covid cases.

Zhang Wenhong, one of Shanghais leading infectious disease experts, told residents on Thursday to be patient while the authorities worked to curb the outbreak.

All of a sudden medical resources are under strain in Shanghai, Dr. Zhang wrote in a long post on Weibo. If we dont counter its speed with our own, we wont have a chance to beat the Omicron race, he wrote, adding that the government would need to ramp up its vaccination campaign.

Beneath his post, many commenters insisted that China rethink its approach to the virus.

Exhausting social resources, degrading the quality of life and existence, dragging down economic development and urban vitality wheres the sense in this pandemic prevention, one commenter wrote. The zero-infection strategy needs thinking over.

Read this article:

Covid Updates: Glaxo Antibody Drug Is Restricted in the Northeast - The New York Times

What is the Omicron variant?

First identified in Botswana and South Africa in November, the Omicron variant has surged around the world over the past few months, faster than any previously known form of the coronavirus. The variant has caused a rapid rise in new cases that pushed some hospital systems to the breaking point.

Scientists first recognized Omicron thanks to its distinctive combination of more than 50 mutations. Some of them were carried by earlier variants such as Alpha and Beta, and previous experiments had demonstrated that they could enable a coronavirus to spread quickly. Other mutations were known to help coronaviruses evade antibodies produced by vaccines.

Based on those mutations, along with a worrying rise in Omicron cases in South Africa, the World Health Organization designated Omicron a variant of concern on Nov. 26, warning that the global risks posed by it were very high. Since then, the variant has been identified in at least 175 countries. Omicron quickly surged to dominance in many parts of the world, living up to the potential that scientists recognized when it was first discovered.

At the beginning of December, a California resident who returned home from South Africa was identified as the first American infected with Omicron. By Dec. 25, it made up three-quarters of all new infections in the United States, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Today, the variant accounts for essentially all infections.

There are several genetically distinct versions of Omicron. Initially, the subvariant known as BA.1 was the most common. In the United States this winter, BA.1 and the highly similar BA.1.1 drove an enormous surge in new cases, which peaked at an average of more than 800,000 a day in mid-January, more than three times as high as the nations previous peak. Since then, cases have steadily declined, as have hospitalizations and deaths.

In the late winter and early spring, a different subvariant, known as BA.2, gained steam, becoming increasingly prevalent worldwide. It was causing slightly more than a third of infections in the United States as of March 22, the C.D.C. estimated. BA.2, which is even more transmissible than BA.1, might also have fueled new surges in China, Hong Kong and South Korea, where cases spiked in March.

[Whats known about BA.2 and whether it will spur a new wave in the U.S.]

Yes. It is two to three times as likely to spread as Delta.

The earliest evidence for Omicrons swift spread came from South Africa, where Omicron rapidly grew to dominance in one province after another. In other countries, researchers were able to catch Omicron earlier in its upswing, and the picture was the same: Omicron cases doubled every two to four days a much faster rate than Delta.

For a closer look at how well Omicron spreads, British researchers also observed what happened in the households of 121 people who had been infected with the variant. They found that Omicron was 3.2 times as likely to cause a household infection as Delta was.

Scientists dont yet know what makes Omicron so good at spreading, but a few clues have emerged from preliminary research. A team of British scientists found that Omicron is particularly good at infecting cells in the nose, for example. When people breathe out through their noses, they can release new viruses.

But several studies suggest that people with Omicron infections do not have higher viral loads than those infected by Delta.

Instead, many scientists believe that Omicron may spread so swiftly because it is adept at dodging antibodies produced by vaccines and previous infections. That allows it to spread quickly even in highly vaccinated populations.

Omicron also appears to have a shorter incubation period than other variants do. People who are infected with Omicron typically develop symptoms just three days after infection, on average, compared with four days for Delta and five days for earlier variants.

Much of the research to date has focused on the BA.1 subvariant, but evidence suggests that BA.2 is even more transmissible than BA.1.

Some symptom differences have emerged from preliminary data. For instance, one possible difference is that Omicron may be less likely than earlier variants to cause a loss of taste and smell.

Data released in December from South Africas largest private health insurer, for instance, suggest that South Africans with Omicron often develop a scratchy or sore throat along with nasal congestion, a dry cough and muscle pain, especially low back pain.

But these are all symptoms of Delta and of the original coronavirus, too. Its likely that the symptoms of Omicron will resemble Deltas more than they differ.

While it likely provides protection against severe disease, immunity from previous infections does little to hinder infections with Omicron. The first clues that Omicron could evade immunity came from South Africa, where scientists estimate that at least 70 percent of people have had Covid-19 at some point in the pandemic. An unexpectedly large fraction of Omicron cases involved people who had previously been infected.

When Omicron surged in England, British researchers similarly found that many people infected with the new variant had already survived Covid. The researchers estimated that the risk of reinfection with Omicron was about five times that of other variants.

Similar results came from Denmark, where scientists compared more than 2,200 households where someone got infected with Omicron to some 6,300 Delta-infected households. Omicron was 3.6 times more likely to infect people with boosters sharing the same house than Delta. But it was barely more likely to infect unvaccinated people.

For a deeper understanding of this increased risk of reinfection, a number of teams of scientists have studied the antibodies produced by people who recover from Covid-19. If they mix those antibodies in a dish with other variants, the antibodies do a good job of preventing the viruses from infecting human cells.

But if they mix those antibodies with Omicron, it still manages to get inside the cells much of the time. That means that the mutations carried by Omicron are changing the shape of its surface proteins, where antibodies lock onto the coronavirus.

Several studies indicate that full vaccination plus a booster shot provides strong protection against infection with Omicron, at least in the short term. Without a booster, however, two doses of a vaccine like Pfizer-BioNTechs or Modernas provide much less protection. (Still, two doses of a vaccine do appear to protect against severe disease from Omicron.)

March 25, 2022, 10:30 p.m. ET

Scientists drew blood from fully vaccinated people and mixed their antibodies with Omicron in a petri dish loaded with human cells. Every vaccine tested so far has done a worse job at neutralizing Omicron than other variants. And antibodies from people who received two doses of the AstraZeneca or one dose of Johnson & Johnson vaccines dont seem to do anything at all against Omicron.

But when researchers tested antibodies from people who had received boosters of Moderna or Pfizer-BioNTech vaccines, they saw a different picture. Boosted antibodies blocked many Omicron viruses from infecting cells.

Researchers found a similar response when they looked at people who had been fully vaccinated with two doses after a Covid-19 infection: Their antibodies were extremely potent against Omicron.

Real-world studies support the results of these experiments. In South Africa, researchers found that two doses of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine had effectiveness against Omicron infection of just 33 percent. Against other variants, they found its effectiveness is 80 percent.

In Britain, researchers found that people who had received two doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine enjoyed no protection at all from infection from Omicron six months after vaccination. Two doses of Pfizer-BioNTech had effectiveness of just 34 percent. But a Pfizer-BioNTech booster had effectiveness of 75 percent against infection.

Results like these reinvigorated vaccination efforts and have spurred widespread booster campaigns.

But booster shots may lose some of their effectiveness against infection over time. In one British study, scientists found that the protection boosters offer against symptomatic Omicron infections wanes within 10 weeks. And data from Israel suggest that a fourth shot may not offer much additional protection against Omicron infections, according to a study published in mid-March.

Yes. In a large study of more than a million cases of Covid, British researchers found that people who had received booster doses were 81 percent less likely to be admitted to the hospital, compared with unvaccinated people. The risk of being admitted to a hospital for Omicron cases was 65 percent lower for those who had received two doses of a vaccine.

And booster doses of the Pfizer and Moderna shots are 90 percent effective at preventing hospitalization from Omicron infections, the C.D.C. reported in January. The benefits were especially pronounced for older adults.

The protection that vaccines afford against severe disease with Omicron has left its mark on hospitals. When Omicron fueled a new surge of cases, the people coming to hospitals in New York City were overwhelmingly unvaccinated.

Vaccinated people are at risk of infection with Omicron because the variant can evade antibodies produced by vaccines and start multiplying in the nose and throat. But vaccines do more than just trigger the production of antibodies against coronaviruses. They also stimulate the growth of T cells that help fight a particular disease. T cells learn to recognize when other cells are infected with specific viruses and then destroy them, slowing the infection.

Scientists have also examined the T cells produced by Covid-19 vaccines to see how well they fare against Omicron. Early studies suggest that these T cells still recognize the Omicron variant.

This preliminary evidence suggests that Omicron infections cannot get past the T-cell line of defense. By killing infected cells, T cells may make it harder for Omicron to reach deep into the airway, where it can cause serious disease.

While Omicron can cause deadly infections in some people, it is less severe overall than the Delta variant.

Scientists measure the severity of a coronavirus variant by examining how many people infected by it end up in the hospital. The Delta variant turned out to be substantially more severe than earlier variants. But the reverse is true for Omicron. A British study found that the risk of hospitalization due to Omicron is half that of Delta.

When the Omicron variant began surging in the United States, hospitals observed the same reduced risk. A study from California found that compared with Delta, Omicron infections were less likely to send people to the hospital or the I.C.U. And despite record-breaking new cases, new hospitalizations rose at a slower rate during the Omicron surge. Although its a relief that Omicron is not as severe as Delta, the new variant still put tremendous strain on hospitals, thanks to its extraordinary contagiousness.

The lower severity of Omicron likely has several causes. Many of the people that Omicron is infecting are vaccinated or recovered from previous infections. Their immunity lowers their chances of ending up in a hospital with Covid.

But preliminary studies on animals and cells also suggests that Omicron has a different biology than other variants. Its strategy for infecting cells works well in the upper airway, but not in the lungs.

Yes. In late December, the Food and Drug Administration authorized two new antiviral pills for Covid, called Paxlovid and molnupiravir. Preliminary experiments indicate that both treatments should work against Omicron. People who are at high risk of developing severe Covid can be prescribed either drug in the first few days after a diagnosis.

A drug called sotrovimab, made by GSK and Vir, is effective against BA.1. It is a monoclonal antibody that can attach to the Omicron variant and prevent it from infecting cells. Unlike Paxlovid and molnupiravir, which are packaged as pills, sotrovimab has to be given as an infusion in a hospital or clinic.

Two other widely used monoclonal antibodies, made by Regeneron and Eli Lilly, wont work because Omicron is resistant to them. As Omicron came to dominate in the United States, the federal government scrambled to secure more doses of sotrovimab.

But some laboratory studies suggested that sotrovimab may be less effective against the BA.2 subvariant.

The F.D.A. recently authorized another monoclonal antibody treatment, bebtelovimab, that appeared to work against both BA.1 and BA.2 in laboratory studies.

Another option for people infected with Omicron is an antiviral drug called remdesivir. Like sotrovimab, it is effective at preventing severe Covid.

For people hospitalized with Omicron infections, a wide range of other treatments are also available. For example, a steroid called dexamethasone has been demonstrated to be very effective at reining in lung-damaging inflammation.

When the W.H.O. began to name emerging variants of the coronavirus, they turned to the Greek alphabet Alpha, Beta, Gamma, Delta and so on to make them easier to describe. The first variant of concern, Alpha, was identified in Britain in late 2020, soon followed by Beta in South Africa.

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What We Know About Omicron and BA.2 - The New York Times

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Cost-effectiveness analysis on COVID-19 surveillance strategy of large-scale sports competition - Infectious Diseases of Poverty - Infectious Diseases...

The country's daily case rate -- about 55,000 a day -- is still less than a third of what it was during the Omicron peak, but cases are rising as fast as they were falling just two weeks earlier, when self-isolation rules for infected people ended in the UK.

The situation has caught the eye of American public health experts, who worry that Europe's rise in infections may be a preview of what's to come in the US. Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, told CNN that his British counterparts have pegged the rise in cases to a combination of three factors: The more transmissible BA.2 variant; the opening of society and people mingling more indoors without masks; and waning immunity from vaccination or prior infection.

"Without a doubt, opening up society and having people mingle indoors is clearly something that is a contributor, as well as overall waning immunity, which means we've really got to stay heads-up and keep our eye on the pattern here," Fauci said. "So that's the reason why we're watching this very carefully."

In the UK, 86% of eligible people are fully vaccinated, and 67% are boosted, compared with 69% of those eligible vaccinated and 50% boosted in the US. "What we see happening in the UK is going to be perhaps a better story than what we should be expecting here," Althoff said.

Even though the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) did away with masking recommendations for most parts of the country two weeks ago, it is vital to stay vigilant. "We have to stay diligent in terms of monitoring of it and testing and be prepared to possibly reverse a lot of the relaxing of these restrictions," said Deborah Fuller, a microbiologist at the University of Washington.

"We can't let our guard down, because the message that people get when they say 'we're lifting restrictions' is the pandemic is over. And it's not."

YOU ASKED. WE ANSWERED.

Q: What factors should people consider if they need to return to work in person?

"People should consider three factors. What are your medical circumstances and that of others in your household? What's the level of Covid-19 in your community? And finally what safety precautions are already being taken in your place of work?" Wen added. "Some offices require proof of vaccination, require regular testing, distancing, and ventilation. And remember that masks are always available, even if they are not required," she said.

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Europe thought it was done with Covid-19. But the virus isn't done with Europe - CNN

Two years on from the start of the coronavirus pandemic, let me tell you what life is like in my Hong Kong neighborhood. Playgrounds are wrapped in red-and-white caution tape and barricaded with plastic fencing to keep children out, and the swings have been tossed over the crossbar to ensure that no illicit amusement takes place. The governments disastrous public messaging about a possible citywide lockdown has led to widespread panic-buying, so gossip swapped while Im out walking my dog focuses on which shops have restocked.

All restaurants have to close at 6 p.m., and bars arent open at all. A restaurant down the street from my apartment now offers happy-hour deals starting at 10 a.m. Gyms, movie theaters, campsites, and beaches have been shut down entirely. If I want to take a walk on my own in a remote country park, I am legally required to wear a mask.

This situation feels all the more shocking because in early 2020, Hong Kong was ahead of the COVID curve, not lagging behind it. As soon as news emerged of a still-mysterious virus, everyone here began wearing masks and adapted to social distancing almost immediately; I wrote article after article about what life would look like in the weeks to come in America, having seen the future myself. While the West was caught off guard, Hong Kong felt prepared.

Now medical facilities are overwhelmed with sick patients, and because morgues have struggled to keep pace, body bags are piled up in hospitals alongside patients still receiving treatment. Coffins are being shipped in to meet the demand. Construction workers are racing to build isolation facilities, including one that looks like a wartime field hospital on the border with the mainland. Some 300,000 people are in isolation or under home quarantine. After recording only 213 deaths and about 13,000 cases of COVID-19 from January 2020 to early 2022, the city is swamped by the current Omicron wave, which began at the start of the year and has led to more than 960,000 cases and more than 4,600 deaths.

Hong Kong was lauded for controlling the coronaviruss spread with its zero-COVID strategy. It has ample vaccine doses. It is wealthy enough to support its poorest people if it chooses to. It has effectively shut down swaths of its economy, including its lucrative tourism sector, to battle the virus.

And yet this month, it recorded one of the highest COVID death rates in the world. What just happened?

Hong Kong has employed its zero-COVID strategy since the onset of the pandemic. The approach has not been as restrictive as the one used in mainland China, which calls for shutting down whole metropolises and testing their population over a handful of COVID cases. The city has an aggressive test-and-trace program, as well as toughened border controls, to catch infections and break transmission lines, and enacts social-distancing measures when cases spike. All of this helped Hong Kong buy itself time in the early stages of the pandemic, when vaccines were not available, keeping deaths to a minimum.

But now it clings to measures not based on sound science, and which experts have dismissed as largely performative (while also being heavily damaging to its travel- and service-based economy). It has neither pivoted to a more flexible approach nor prepared for an outbreak that analysts repeatedly warned was inevitable.

The missteps are almost too numerous to recount, but the worst ones have to do with Hong Kongs singular inability to vaccinate its population. The governments efforts were from the start imbued with politics and marred by poor messaging. It initially rushed through approval of the China-made Sinovac vaccine, and city leaders made a show of being inoculated with it, despite a better optionBioNTechs mRNA jabbeing available. (The large majority of deaths have been among the unvaccinated, but officials refuse to disclose data on which vaccine was administered to those who died after being vaccinated.) Press releases highlighting, with little context, the vaccines adverse effects were amplified by the media, leading to intense skepticism. Distrust in the government, still lingering from its handling of prodemocracy protests in 2019, did not help the cause. And most troubling has been the poor vaccination rate among the citys elderly population, a persistent problem. Today, just 55 percent of people older than 80 have received one vaccine shot, and 36 percent have received two.

Lam Ching-choi, a physician and a member of Chief Executive Carrie Lams cabinet, told me that the governments early reliance on family doctors to advise patients on vaccination was a mistake: Many warned the elderly to be cautious about receiving the vaccine. Predictably, COVID has swept through residential care homesmore than 29,000 elderly care-home residents have been infected during the current wave. Lam also told me that the government should have offered at-home vaccination for residents with mobility issues, and said the authorities would soon begin implementing that program. Yet it will start only next week, more than two months into the surge and more than a year after the vaccine rollout initially began.

The 21-day hotel quarantine required for all arrivals into Hong Kong, even for those without COVID, is dangerous and unscientific, experts told me, but the government has continued the practice anyway, leading to cross infections and a spike in cases. A government-funded study published last year warned about vaccine hesitancy, but officials did little beyond sloganeering and a perfunctory poster drive. The government also insisted on issuing compulsory testing notices to residents even when testing and quarantine facilities were already overloaded, leading to more stress on a teetering health system. Flight bans from countries including the United States and Britain are scheduled to be in place until next month, though the governments own advisers say there is no reason for this to continue.

In sum, decision makers ignored public-health expertise, driven instead by politics and overly enthusiastic efforts to show fealty to Beijing. The result has been an embarrassingly shambolic effort that has created a preventable public-health disaster, yet another glaring failure of governance from an administration whose defining characteristic is catastrophic ineptitude.

The question to ask, not unreasonably, would be: How come we either didnt have a good plan or didnt execute a good plan? Gabriel Leung, the dean of medicine at the University of Hong Kong and a pandemic-response adviser to the government, told me. When I asked whether he had any thoughts on the answer to that question, Leung responded, Suffice to say that we have done our very best to generate the best science to inform policy decisions. And, as Margaret Thatcher once said, Advisers advise; ministers decide. Lets put it at that.

Much of the world has struggled with various phases of the pandemic, but Hong Kongs difficulties are in no small part due to the fact that the city no longer has even its previous limited democratic accountability to push the government to review public-health decisions, thanks to a crackdown by Beijing and the imposition of a draconian national-security law. For varying reasons, many residents believed the governments fiction that only a small minority of people would be affected by these changes, but the mishandling of COVID has highlighted how the reengineering of Hong Kong will touch all aspects of life.

With opposition voices silenced, Hong Kongs rulers claimed they could more efficiently govern. But in the city legislature, overhauled last year to ensure that nationalism and obedience are valued over competence and political know-how, suggestions on how to tame the outbreak have included the wildly impractical (using cruise ships as temporary isolation facilities) and the patently absurd (dropping fresh food into Hong Kong by drone). Even this newfound sense of urgency on the part of lawmakers and the government has emerged only after Chinese President Xi Jinping spoke last month of the overriding mission to bring the current outbreak under control.

At the same time, pro-Beijing pundits and mainland officials have cast pandemic response, and adherence to dynamic zero COVID, as a loyalty test. (Determining what exactly dynamic zero COVID means is futile; the description shifts from official to official and day to day. Nevertheless, authorities insist that it shouldnt be questioned.) The director of Chinas Hong Kong and Macau Affairs Office said this month that patriotic forces must forcefully expose, criticize, and sanction with laws the anti-China destabilizing forces who launched smearing attacks, spread rumors, and created panic to disrupt the anti-pandemic efforts. Addressing the United Nations, a Hong Kong doctor said that the idea of living with the virus was tantamount to the U.S. creating biological terrorists, in a melodramatic screed that seemed scripted for a comic-book villain. Hong Kongs civil service has become a targeted group, fingered as being polluted by Western ideas for questioning the COVID strategy.

Hong Kongs pandemic response definitely shows the NSL [national-security law] new order is not only about election and activists, but extends to all realms of life, Ho-Fung Hung, a professor at Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies and the author of the forthcoming book City on the Edge: Hong Kong Under Chinese Rule, told me by email.

As they did with the imposition of the national-security law, mainland officials felt the need to step in to address COVID-related problems that the Hong Kong government had created for itself, a move that has been met with slavish praise. Newspapers controlled by the Chinese government here have splashed their pages with adoration for workers arriving from over the border. Pro-Beijing lawmakers have rushed to social media to post their gratitude to the motherland for its support. My inbox fills up daily with statements thanking Beijing for taking control. The citys secretary of health applauded the mainlands donation of traditional Chinese medicine. (Authorities in Singapore, by contrast, have warned that there is no scientific evidence that one such remedy, called lianhua qingwen, can be used to prevent or treat COVID-19, while Australia has banned the sale of the treatment entirely.) The endless, unrestrained flattery seems akin to the celebration of an arsonist who lights his house on fire, cuts the water hose, and then cheers as the fire brigade arrives to extinguish the flames.

All the while, the broader political purge and repression of rights that was already under way in Hong Kong has carried on undisrupted. Half a dozen people were arrested and charged with sedition last month. In early March, the former head of the bar association, a British lawyer, was questioned by national-security police before he left the city, followed through the airport by reporters from Chinese state media. Authorities accused a U.K.-based rights group of endangering national security and demanded that it take down its website. Carrie Lam, the citys chief executive, employs wartime rhetoric as an excuse to exercise emergency powers. The longer the coronavirus outbreak persists, the more policies to combat it become intertwined with the ever-expanding security apparatus.

Listing Hong Kongs mistakes triggers a sense of dj vu: a politicized and inept response, an unwillingness to adapt existing strategies to the viruss mutations, an inability to overcome vaccine skepticism, long-running fissures in society torn open by COVID. For years, we were told by pro-Beijingers that these were the Wests problems, not ours.

Two years ago, we looked at the U.S. and Europe, dumbstruck at how badly they were managing the pandemic. Two years on, we are experiencing what Siddharth Sridhar, a virologist at the University of Hong Kong, describes as a plane crash in slow motion, having apparently learned little from the Westsor our ownexperience.

The rest is here:

What Happened to Hong Kong? - The Atlantic